Author: admin

J. Xia

Canada is hit hard by the Great Depression. Suffering from the economic depression, Canadian people face the problem like lacking food, unemployment and increasing rate in suicide. The government had changed and made lots of different policies during 1930s, but the economy condition is still not positive from the Canadian perspective- So, what is the next step the government is going to take?

When the depression began, Mackenzie King was the Prime Minister and he believed the crisis would pass, refused to provide federal aid to the provinces, and only introduced the moderate relief effort. Whereas, in the next election, Bennett defeated King and became the Prime Minister in 1930. The Liberal Party is defeated by the Conservative party. Bennett was a successful western business man and campaigned on high tariffs and large scale spending. He made three policies as a Prime Minister. F irst, he spent 20 million to the provinces, but there was few jobs created. Second, he rose the tariffs so the trade between foreign country became expensive and it would improve the finance in Canada. At last, he created work campus. They were located far in the woods; men worked for 20 cents a day; food was terrible and beds were full of insects. When Bennett became the Prime Minister, most Canadian people believed that he would lead them to overcome the depression. Therefore, Bennett had lots of pressure and each of his decision was highly attended. In the first four years, he did not spend too much federal aim on the recovery of economy. However, some Canadians started to doubt his policy and called for more spending on the recovery. In 1935, Bennett put more aid on the depression, but some Canadians started to change their minds and wanted King to be the Prime Minister in the following years. Some people criticized that Bennett was too radical and was a trouble maker. The result of the election was not surprising- King became the Prime Minister again. The Liberal Party came back! In 1935 the Liberal used the slogan “King or Chaos” to win a landslide. Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the U.S., the Mackenzie King government passed the 1935 Reciprocal Trade Agreement. Some experts said it marked the turning point in Canadian-American economic relations and reversed the disastrous trade war of 1930-1931, lowing tariffs, and yielding a dramatic increase in trade, and it revealed to the prime minister and the president that they could work together well. Moreover, King equalized payments to ensure all provinces could offer the same social services. Most people agreed that it was much more beneficial than the policies of Bennett.

Moreover, during the Great Depression, the government prohibited the immigrants to come into Canada because they already could not satisfy with their own citizens, they had no reason to let other people to immigrate to Canada. What action made most people aware was they started to send foreign people go back. Some people support this decision because it made more available resources and money for Canadians, but some people opposed the action because it was too cruel for those people especially who were in Asia. The data showed that about 10000 immigrants were deported by the government. Experts said the immigration policy would continue until several years of the economy of Canada get recovered.

In addition, the effects of unemployment were very severe because employment insurance and welfare payments did not yet exist. 1 in 5 Canadians depend on government relief. Therefore, pogey in Canada was lower than the lowest paying jobs to discourage people from wanting to be on it. Men had to wait in line for hours and declare their financial failure publicly so it was too cruel for some men that they would like to choose suicide rather than be insulted in public.

The economy is getting better since King signed the treaty with the America and most Canadian people believe King will lead them to overcome the depression this time. Canada has suffered since the U.S. stopped to buy their wheat. Therefore, all Canadians put their hope on the treaty and believe the U.S. is the real factor that can save them. Hopefully, the Great Depression will pass soon and Canadian economy can get flourish again.

India is still a poor country, ranked 127 out of 177 in the Human Development Index, and therefore one must question the rationale of spending more than a billion dollars on a sporting event. I’m sure Danny Boyle would show something better of India than he showed in Slumdog Millionaire, only if this money were spent on more important issues like poverty, illiteracy and unemployment.

Therefore, I stand to challenge the very idea of hosting the Games. I would talk about the harm done and debate whether it has done us any good as against what it has taken from us.

A lot has been said about the Games aiding to our quest to build a strong image at the international level. But, we must not ignore the fact that proving to the world that we are very well capable of organising an international event of such a scale would do little good, when made to stand against our shortcoming of not having been able to provide food, clothing and shelter to the majority of our population.

Some people argue that the infrastructure developed for the Games shall serve its purpose over the coming years as well and hence the expenditure is justified. However instances from the past stand in sharp contrast to this. The ‘infrastructural wonders’ which were built in Delhi for the Asian Games, 1982 have not been able to serve enough purpose and are majorly underutilised, till date. The Players’ building – the large residential complex built during that time – remained uninhabited for 15 years, till it was reborn as the Delhi Secretariat. Not a single stadium has been maintained appropriately and they are thus, more often visited by rats and snakes than by humans. Thus it is quite apparent that these stadiums are simply given a facelift in the run up to an event but otherwise left in a state of disrepair.

India has been reeling under the threat of terrorism and it was not long ago that we suffered from the brutal Mumbai attacks. On top of that, we have not even been able to tackle the problem of internal militancy. An event of such magnitude and national importance, with thousands of foreign nationals coming in, made our country all the more prone to another terror attack. Lack of attendance at the Games may also be attributed to the same reason. An online poll conducted by tripadvisor.com found that 93% of the foreigners from the Commonwealth nations did not want to travel to India, out of which, 37% attributed their apprehensions to security concerns.

For weeks before the CWG, our own newspapers and media channels belligerently showed the abysmal situation of Delhi to everyone. Indians packed off for holidays when they realized that offices wouldn’t function during the days of the Games.

Countless people have been displaced due to the development works for the Games, undertaken at the otherwise untouched and underdeveloped areas of East Delhi and Yamuna River front. To ready the area, ‘illegal’ structures in the area have been demolished. This means that the slums that had spread in the area have had to go, regardless of the fact that low-income housing is practically nonexistent in the city and thus the slum dwellers have got no relocation.

Some avid supporters of the Games say that it was a great ‘learning experience’ for our Government and its officials and that things would just get better. This is also used as grounds to justify their opinion that we must now bid for the Olympics, as well. But the Asian Games, 1982 disprove this as well. Budgets were overshot and the quality was abysmal, even then.

Before hoping for a better performance in such endeavours in future, we must not forget that over the years, our love for mediocrity and corruption has only increased!

An overhead bridge collapsed, injuring 27 people and a bed buckled under the weight of a boxer, while the greedy politicians-turned-heads of the Organizing Committee feasted on the grant of ` 70,000 crores, issued by the Indian Government. Thus, the Games were simply another opportunity for our Government to showcase its talent for robbing the coffers of a poor country to the core and to reinforce the fact that blunders on its part could easily be swept under the carpet, in the hope that they would soon be forgotten.

The Indian contingent spent ` 40 crores on getting the message – “See You in Delhi” across at the closing ceremony of the Melbourne Games in an 11 – minute show. Considering that among other things, like A. R. Rahman being paid ` 5 crores to compose the theme song, I would say that the Games were an extremely expensive ‘PR’ exercise and simply an exercise in nationalism and politician-supported patriotism.

Let’s look at the larger picture now. Why couldn’t the grass root issues be taken care of before venturing into something as big as the Games and how important was it for an underdeveloped nation to go into such waters as these, while the majority of its population is still below the poverty line? Given the current economic situation, the country would have been better off without the Games and the money that has been spent on building the white elephants (stadiums etc.) would have been better utilised to build homes for the poor. The beauty of these stadiums would impress only those who are not conversant with the dismal state of the millions of people across our country, who live in conditions which would certainly be classified as unfit, even for cattle in the West.

I tried my best not to write much about the already talked about issue of corruption. But I came across something on the day the Games concluded and am tempted to share it here – ‘The Games went off well. Very well…Now let the Audits begin!’

Student: Vipul Joshi